When I was in college, I ran over a cow. Yes, in my car. No, not on purpose. Yes, it was already dead. You see, most weekends I drove 30 miles home to work and to see my folks. One Sunday afternoon on my drive back to Centre College to Danville, KY, I got to a place where the road goes from 4 lanes to 2. So I was changing lanes. As a safe driver, I turned on my blinker, checked my side mirror, and then gave a look over my shoulder. All clear, I began to merge. When my eyes returned to the road, there was a full sized dairy cow laying in the middle of the road directly in front of me. I had no time to react, so I literally ramped the cow.
Just to be clear, this is not an actual photo of what happened that day, but it’s a pretty close approximation. Just imagine a white 1994 Buick Regal instead of the General Lee. I know what you’re thinking, ”He is spending a lot of time on this cow.” But if you hang in there, I’ll move us along quickly! So back to the cow. Remarkably, there was minimal damage to my car. I needed an alignment and the mechanics said there was a lot of fur on the undercarriage, but otherwise the car was fine.
My point here is that I had the best of intentions when looking over my shoulder to switch lanes. That is exactly what Greg Parsons had taught me to do in my driving lessons. But that didn’t prevent me from running over an object in the middle of the road. Indeed, that good intention may have caused the negative outcome.
And that is sort of how I have come to see the science of reading movement. Policymakers passing science of reading legislation, coaches promoting science of reading policies, and teachers embracing the science of reading movement all have the best of intentions. I have realized this after working with local schools, school board members, state departments of education, parents, and fellow educators.
They have been told by multiple authoritative sources that the United States is in a reading crisis, and it is in a reading crisis because reading instruction is not aligned with the current research – it is not aligned with the science. If that was the information I was provided, then passing legislation or supporting a curriculum aligned with the science of reading is completely logical. That is why these laws, now in 40 states and the District of Columbia, are being passed, often unanimously.
First, is there a reading crisis? Let’s look at the data that everyone references to establish a reading crisis, the NAEP -- the National Assessment of Educational Progress or the Nation’s Report Card. Here you can see that since 1992, reading achievement on the NAEP has remained stagnant, ranging from 217-223 over the last 20 years, a period during which the population of students in U.S. schools has changed dramatically. I’m not suggesting that I’m satisfied with such results, but it does not appear that balanced literacy caused a dire reading crisis in the country. The only decline I see over the last two decades is from 2019 to 2022. Does anyone have any ideas why we might have seen a drop between 2019 and 2022?
Okay, so the call for legislating the science of reading goes something like this: “Nearly two thirds of students are reading below the proficient level.” Now, this is a true statement, but we need to know what proficient means to genuinely understand that statement.
So, let’s unpack NAEP levels. Three ALER scholars, David Reinking, George Hruby, and Vicki Risko recently wrote an excellent analysis of the science of reading movement in Teachers College Record. They demonstrated that the categories of performance (below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced) carry very little meaning.. The second quote is from Diane Ravitch who was member of the National Assessment Governing Board that oversees NAEP.
After learning this, I was gob smacked, so I called a buddy of mine who works as a statistician for the Department of Education and works with NAEP. He explained that the NAEP is designed to be a challenging assessment and that it is not designed to be aligned with grade level reading. He confirmed that the cut scores do not hold any inherent meaning and that the levels should not be used as they currently are in reading.
Therefore, a more accurate statement would be that “Nearly two thirds of students are adequately comprehending difficult reading material.” That’s a little different than what we are being told. And, yet, NAEP scores are being used to show a catastrophic reading crisis. Are we being sold a story?
Nonetheless, most of us live in states that have passed science of reading legislation. So what, exactly, do science of reading policies include? Science of Reading legislation tends to include teacher preparation guidelines, teacher PD guidelines, high-quality instructional materials, required assessments, and intervention.
On the surface, I have no qualms with any of these. I fully support increasing teacher knowledge through high-quality teacher education and PD. I have come to appreciate the importance of high-quality curricula. And we have long known the importance of assessment and intervention for students not making adequate progress. I agree that if we did these things (promoted teacher knowledge, adopted quality curricula, and regularly assessed student progress to guide intervention), we would support student reading advancement.
Science of Reading Policies
- Teacher preparation aligned with SOR
- Teacher professional development aligned with SOR
- Curricula aligned with SOR
- Consistent assessment
- Intervention for students not progressing as expected
How these aspects of reading instruction are being implemented, though, is not always (or often?) aligned with research on how people learn.
In particular, I have three scruples with these policies and how they are being implemented.
Scruple #1 – The teacher bashing that accompanies support for SOR
Proponents of the science of reading have blamed teachers (and teacher educators) for this supposed reading crisis, suggesting that they are resistant to change and clinging to disproven approaches.
Thank goodness we have these media sensationalists to show us the way.
Teachers are the lifeblood of the educational enterprise and they should be compensated and respected accordingly. I genuinely thought that after COVID, society would have a more positive view of teachers and the critical role they play in not only societal advancement but also day-to-day life. By a show of hands, was anyone’s life impacted by Zoom school for your children? Why it is in vogue to degrade teachers who are working tirelessly with our nation’s most precious commodity is beyond me.
Scruple #2 – The requirement to teach curricula to fidelity
This is an effort to teacher-proof the curriculum. Many of these policies require teachers to teach to fidelity, often reading from a script. The Virginia Literacy Act, for example, forbids teachers from deviating from the approved curriculum or using additional resources.
This is problematic because while the scientific research base tells us a lot about the knowledge and skills students need to read, it tells us very little how best to teach reading, especially regarding dosage and differentiation.
Therefore, states are approving curricula because teachers can’t be trusted because they are holding on to outdated and disproven approaches. So we will adopt this curriculum that is aligned with the science of reading and make teachers follow it to fidelity.
But it’s not going to work. First, it never has – remember the First Grade Studies in 1967 that demonstrated that it is the teacher, not the program that matters in teaching kids to read? What about Reading First, a billion-dollar-per-year federal program that after five years of fidelity to scripted instruction demonstrated no gains in third graders’ reading achievement.
But it is also not going to work because kids are different. Anyone in here have more than one child? Are they different? Of course they are! We know that learning to read requires the complex coordination of knowledge, skills, and strategies. Expecting a class of 25 students’ needs to be met by a single curriculum is completely illogical.
In this situation, kids suffer because power is given to a curriculum instead of the teacher who knows them and could adapt her instruction to meet students’ needs. Back in late 1990s and 2000s, Michael Pressley and others engaged in exemplary teacher studies. The logic of that research agenda was to identify the teachers who are exemplary and then go and see what they do. Among other characteristics, these studies in first grade, fourth grade, and others consistently identified teacher adaptability, teacher responsiveness, as a characteristic of highly effective reading teachers. For that reason, several colleagues and I have studied teacher adaptations for years. Many of those colleagues are in this room (Roya, Allison, Julie, Aimee, Jackie). This research has catalogued how and why teachers adapt and has emerging evidence that teacher responsiveness is associated with improved student outcomes. In the special issue of RRQ devoted to the science of reading, Margaret Vaughn, Dixie Massey, and I presented the case for the importance of adaptive teaching within the science of reading if anyone is interested in learning more about this.
Scruple #3 – The complete inattention to motivation
I’m dumbfounded by the lack of attention given to reading motivation in the science of reading movement. This oversight is ironic because the science of reading movement stakes its authority on scientific research, but it is ignoring an entire subset of reading research that has strong evidence for the importance of motivation in learning to read.Joy Erickson and I point out this striking omission in a recent article in Phi Delta Kappan appropriately titled “Where is motivation in the science of reading?”
Literacy expert Linda Gambrell, whom we sadly lost this year, reminded us year-after-year that motivation matters. Toste and colleagues demonstrated this in their recent meta-analysis, which found moderate relationships between motivation and reading at all grade levels K-12. They also found evidence that motivation and reading achievement have a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, taking a dual-pronged focus to reading instruction gives students the knowledge and skills needed AND that attends to students’ motivation is optimal because enhancements in one supports enhancements in the other – its like supercharging your instruction or intervention.
Toste and colleagues also point out the curious omission of motivation from presentations of learning to read.
Finally, I want to acknowledge how frustrating this situation is. Since the science of reading movement really began five years ago, I’ve gone through various stages of reaction. First, I dismissed it. “Oh this again.” Then I was angry “Who the hell is this journalist to tell us how to most effectively teach reading?” But I’ve come to a place that where I see a path forward. It begins with the understanding of good intentions. I made a big deal about good intentions and unintended consequences at the beginning of this talk because I believe that is a central assumption to move forward in a positive and productive way. My earlier stages of dismissal and anger lead inevitably to division, an “us vs. them” mentality that essentially precludes positive advancement and ensures unproductive argument.
While those of us in this room know that the science of reading movement is flawed, it is heartening to know that there is a shared goal among all stakeholders. I have to assume that even the most off-base science of reading proponents are doing what they are doing because they think it is the right thing to do for kids.
When I let go of dismissal and anger, I see that research is valued more now than previously, and that is something to celebrate. I’m a firm believer that policy and practice should be guided by high-quality research. Right now, though, policy implementation is extending beyond research, and that is an opportunity for us to move toward better policy implementation.
And I’ve seen this shift in science of reading proponents. Back in 2021, for example, I was hearing from teachers that they were forbidden from reading aloud to students because of the science of reading. Instead, they should be focusing on phonics and students should be reading decodables.
A year later, I was invited to conduct professional development on interactive read-alouds because of the strong research behind it. I had a similar experience with student talk in the classroom. At first, the focus was so heavy on explicitly teaching phonics that student discussion was discouraged because, you know, it smelled like whole language. But they have walked that back as well having learned about the powerful research on oral language in reading development, I assume.
Last, I am encouraged because the core of most science of reading legislation is logical. As I argued earlier in this talk, giving teachers more knowledge, adopting high-quality curriculum, and using ongoing assessment to guide intervention are all supported by research and they are all pervasive aspects of science of reading legislation.
Having read my little rant, I leave you with the following charge. First, join me in assuming good intentions with the science of reading movement. Instead of getting frustrated with science of reading advocates and proponents and perpetuating the fabricated Reading Wars, remember that they are most likely doing what they are doing because they believe it is best for kids.
Second, stay on top of the research. This is much more difficult than it sounds. Research is being produced at a higher rate than ever before and it is published in a wide variety of venues. To promote positive change, though, we need to know what the research says and what it doesn’t say. I urge you to set alerts on Google Scholar and databases, so you are notified of new publications related to reading acquisition and then read the abstracts.
Third, make sure you know what the law in your area includes. As I have noted a couple times now, state laws tend to be fine. Things go off the rails in how they are being implemented, which goes back to how the movement is being messaged (distrust of teachers who have been doing it wrong forever). But this is where our focus should be: know the research, know the laws. Then, I encourage you to identify places where implementation is straying from the research and act there.
